Coconut Chocolate Pudding

It took me almost thirty dollars in premium chocolate and four lackluster attempts to eventually come up with a chocolate pudding recipe special enough to share with you. I made not only bland, flat, and gelatinous puddings, but also runny and boring chocolate puddings before I finally turned out this keeper of a batch. It is deeply dark and impossibly chocolatety, rich, glossy, fragrant, and un-lumpy. I used a coconut milk base in place of dairy, and infused it with a whisper of warming spices to give it an unexpected, ambiguously exotic je ne sais quoi.

On my journey to the final recipe, I ran into a few issues and problems that needed to be addressed. I had a pudding in mind - it would be a serious and sophisticated dark chocolate pudding made with a coconut milk base, arrowroot would be used as the thickener, non-alkalized cocoa powder (not dutched) would be enlisted, as would a semi-sweet chocolate bar. I'm usually relatively close to the mark when I imagine how ingredients might come together into a final creation or recipe, but my first attempt here was remarkably off. The pudding took almost twelve hours to achieve any sort of set, and even then it was on the runny side. It dawned on me the acidity in the non-alkalized cocoa powder might be rendering the arrowroot thickener ineffective, so I corrected for that variable and made changes a bit at a time over the course of five batches until I finally had a chocolate pudding recipe that matched the one in my imagination.

So here it is! The great thing is it only takes a few minutes of active cooking time. You can play around with a few of the variables - for example, it might be fun to use one of those uniquely-spiced Vosges chocolate bars in place of the straight semi-sweet. If you want to use regular or low-fat milk, give it a go. You can use cornstarch, but it didn't deliver the smooth glossy texture and sheen that came with using arrowroot powder. I also mention a few other variables to play with in the recipe headnotes.

Sidenote: I like silky smooth puddings, my dad on the other hand can never get enough tapioca - there are stretches when I know he makes a batch a week. If you're interested I'll have him give me a lesson, and I'll pass along his recipe for the tapioca fans out there.